Cricket Superstar Premieres On Fox 8 on Jan 4

by Reality Raver

The good news for people who have pay TV is that these channels don’t go on holidays.

Cricket Superstar will premiere on Fox 8 on the 4th of January. The show is based on the same format as Football Superstar, a show that really did not grab my attention. Please note I am not really into sport, also the sports guys were to too young and dumb to be able to check out. I do have some standards!

Anyway here is what the press release says:

Hosted by Lee Furlong, CRICKET SUPERSTAR is a competitive new sports-reality series following a group of promising young cricketers as they battle it out in a series of gruelling challenges for the chance of a lifetime.

After a nationwide audition tour earlier this year, followed by an intensive selection weekend at Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence, 15 young players were selected to take part in the show.

Over the course of filming, these young sportsmen live together in a state-of-the-art mansion in Brisbane while competing in a series of carefully devised cricket challenges designed to show off their skills.

There is also a weekly non-cricket challenge that takes the boys out of their comfort zone in order to reveal their all important characteristics, from skydiving to catwalk modelling, rally driving and even Bollywood dancing.

Judging the boys at every step is cricketing great Allan Border. As chief judge, Border has the final say on who stays and who goes. Also on board is former Australian test cricketer Graham Manou, who is responsible for mentoring the boys on their journey from backyard cricket ace to CRICKET SUPERSTAR. Along the way, cricket legends past and present drop in to their training sessions to give invaluable advice.

The winner of CRICKET SUPERSTAR will earn a rookie contract for the 2012-13 season, as well as a four month scholarship at Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane.

I will check it out, however Injera’s on her new blog has a different take on it.

Thanks for the link! I’m not putting this on the “must see” list – for a start, I had to google Graham Manou to find out about his illustrious Test career.

Result of search? One. Test.

Also, is there even such a thing as a “rookie contract” or is this invented for the show. Looking at some of the ages of these guys, if they were any good, they’d have been called up by now. It’s not as though the current team is swimming in talent…!

Injera- Re Rookie contracts, State teams have them but I don’t think cricket Australia do, as thats what state cricket is for. So maybe they have all the states on board to give whoever wins the relevant states rookie contract.

Georgie, you’re right that they already have a youth development scheme in place.

Were this the actual motivation then I reckon the NRL should co-produce “Non-Polynesian NRL Superstar” to address the ‘big is inherently better’ imbalance in junior footy. Not that I’m saying the Polys and Melanesians in the top grade don’t have footy skills. Just that the game is better with a mix and an emphasis on ball skills rather than smash-ups.

Hey BDD, the Hoggster was always good at keeping it ‘right in the pocket’, so good to hear that his pinpoint accuracy also applies to Number Twos…
…unlike Julian O’Neill or Nate Myles who are more famous for having ‘sprayed it all over the pitch’